Senators Historically Patient With 12 Defensemen They've Drafted In The First Round

One of the things that will be remembered about the 2024 NHL Draft is how many good young defensemen were seen as good options relatively early in the first round.

When you look at the top 12 overall picks from last year, half of them ended up being defensemen, and as the Senators stepped up to the podium at seventh overall, five of the six D were still on the board. Artyom Levshunov was chosen second overall by the Chicago Blackhawks, and Ottawa’s choice of Carter Yakemchuk made him the second defenseman taken in the draft.

As such, expectations for Yakemchuk are sky high, not just to get to the NHL, but to be a very good top-four defenseman when he gets here. No one in Ottawa wants to hear that the Senators invested a seventh overall pick in a player who is a nice bottom-pairing NHL defenseman, or, for that matter, that he needed five years to get here.

Yakemchuk has been playing big minutes with the Belleville Senators of the American Hockey League, but has yet to get a call-up to the NHL, despite being a final cut at each of the last two Ottawa training camps. Now he's injured, so his development is on hold for the time being, and fans may have to wait even longer for his arrival.

Meanwhile, even the most patient fans can't help but start to notice that three of the four defensemen selected after Yakemchuk are already in the NHL. That includes Zeev Buium, who has 16 points in his first 32 NHL games this season. Buium did a pretty decent Quinn Hughes impression with two points in his first game as a Vancouver Canuck on the weekend.

No one has any idea this early in the game who will emerge as the best defenseman out of the 2024 NHL Draft class. But that won't stop the coulda, shoulda debates from breaking out, forcing the sensible fans to unpack all the sensible cliches: Better overripe than underdeveloped. Or everyone develops at their own pace. Or just trying to be Best in Class

All of those concepts are impossible to argue with.

Senators' Top Prospect Carter Yakemchuk Injured In Collision During Sunday's AHL GameThe Senators anxiously await a health update on their 2024 seventh-overall draft pick.

So what should people expect from a defenseman chosen in the first round? When should he arrive? There is, obviously, no set answer, no crystal ball, and Ottawa’s checkered history of drafting defensemen in the first round proves all that.

1995: Bryan Berard, first overall

Despite being the number one overall pick, Berard failed to make a very bad Senators team in 1995-96, which was part of why he asked for a trade. Berard spent that season in the OHL with the Detroit Whalers, and after the Sens traded him, he joined the New York Islanders the following year, where he had 48 points in 82 games. which would be his career high as an NHL player. Four seasons after that, now with Toronto, his career was never the same after taking a stick in the eye in a game against the Senators.

1996: Chris Phillips, first overall

Just as Yakemchuk did, Phillips returned for another season in the Western Hockey League, split between Prince Albert and Lethbridge. He then joined the Senators for the 1997-98 season and went on to become the Senators’ all-time games-played leader at 1,179.

2000: Anton Volchenkov, 21st overall

Volchenkov returned to Russia for two years before joining the Senators full-time for the 2002-03 season. He played seven seasons for the Senators in a shot-blocking, shutdown role, and the Senators could use two more like him right now.

2004: Andrej Meszaros, 23rd overall

Meszaros was selected out of Slovakia and came over after the draft to play for the Vancouver Giants in the Western Hockey League. After one season there, Meszaros joined the Senators and put up 39 points in his rookie season and finished third in the NHL with a plus-34. In a 2009 contract dispute, the Senators traded Meszaros to Tampa for Filip Kuba, Alexandre Picard and a 2009 first-round pick.

2005: Brian Lee, ninth overall

Like future Senators Christian Wolanin, Tyler Kleven, and Jake Sanderson, Lee headed to the University of North Dakota after his draft year, where he spent two seasons. He spent most of a third season with Binghamton of the American Hockey League before joining the Senators in 2008. Lee didn't have a particularly distinguished Sens career and was eventually traded after parts of five seasons to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

2008: Erik Karlsson, 15th overall

Not even three-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson was immune from the need for development after the Senators selected him. He returned to Sweden for one year in 2009, then played 12 games for the Binghamton Senators before becoming a full-time Senator. He posted 26 points in 60 games in his rookie season, so there was still some work to be done.

2009: Jared Cowen, ninth overall

After being drafted, Cowen returned to Spokane of the Western Hockey League for three more seasons before finally cracking Ottawa’s lineup in 2011, when he played all 82 games. He played parts of four seasons after that but ran into injury trouble that ended his career in his mid-20s.

2012: Cody Ceci,15th overall

Ceci returned to junior for one more season split between the Ottawa 67’s and the Owen Sound Attack. The following year he played 27 games with Binghamton and then became a full-time Senator for the next six seasons.

2015: Thomas Chabot, 18th overall

Chabot returned to the Saint John Sea Dogs for the better part of two seasons. He played 13 games with Belleville before becoming a full-time Senator in 2017-18. Chabot has been excellent offensively for the Senators, and while his detractors would like to see a little more intensity without the puck, there's no arguing that his absence from Ottawa’s lineup has been glaring this season as he works through an injury.

2019: Lassi Thomson, 19th overall

After being drafted, Thomson returned to Europe for a year and a half, then came back to North America to play 35 games with Belleville before making his NHL debut with Ottawa in 2021-22. But he never stuck as an NHL regular. In 2024, he left for Europe again but returned to the organization this year as a free agent.

2020: Jake Sanderson, 5th overall

After Sanderson was drafted in 2020, he went to school for two years at the University of North Dakota before he reported for NHL duty in Ottawa. Sanderson needed two full developmental seasons after his draft year and then became the Sens' best defenseman (and probably one of the ten best in the game).

So no one really needs to fret right now about Yakemchuk's ETA.

2025: Logan Hensler, 23rd overall

Along with three other Sens prospects, Hensler is at the University of Wisconsin, which is off to a dominant 14-2-2 start. Henslerr has 8 points in 15 games, but it's far too early to include him in a list where we're trying to see if there's a trend. 

Ottawa's draft history shows why projecting Carter Yakemchuk’s NHL arrival, or his eventual ceiling, is so difficult. There's obviously no perfectly reliable strategy, or timetables, or guarantees, regardless of draft position. And every first-round pick is awesome until we all decide he isn't.

In the absence of a perfect formula, patience will always be the strongest fallback, even for players with great expectations. 

By Steve Warne
The Hockey News

This article was originally published at The Hockey News Ottawa. Read more:

30 Games Into The Season, What Is The Ottawa Senators' Identity?
Senators Comeback Effort Wasted In 3-2 Regulation Loss In Minnesota
After A Hot Start, Senators' Veteran Goes Ice Cold And Now Joins Injury List
Popular Former Ottawa Senator Forward Attempting Comeback At Age 38
Four Ottawa Senators Make Annual List Of Most Punchable NHL Players